User:Atcovi/VA and US History/page 1

Slavery as a Congressional Issue

 * December, 1849: Congressional Docket
 * 1) Calfironia's Statehood
 * 2) TX claiming eastern NM
 * 3) Abolition of slavery in DC
 * 4) Enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act, 1793

The Compromise of 1850

 * Once again made by Henry Clay
 * Terms:
 * 1) CA is free.
 * 2) Utah/NM - People will have the right to decide their slavery-state.
 * 3) Slavery is not to be expanded into the NM territory.
 * Last two terms of the compromise:
 * 1) Slave trading is banned in DC, but not slavery.
 * 2) Fugitive Slave Law is strengthened. (if you're a Northerner and help slaves out, you will be punished severely)
 * Calhoun vs. Webster
 * Calhoun and Webster had strong opinions on Clay's compromise.
 * 1) Calhoun: Does not accept popular sovereignty for slavery.
 * 2) Webster: Accepts popular sovereignty for slavery.

Omnibous Bill
Bill that accepts all terms is denied.

Stephen Douglas convinces his party members to vote one way or the other. So the bill, which was accepted by Millard Filmore (5 small terms).

Fugitive Slave Act

 * States had not been made to enforce 1793 FSA.
 * 1850 FSA startled many Northerners.

The law gave many advantages to the South by calling for the immediate return for the runaway slaves in the North. Many punishments were set for Northerners who helped runaway slaves.

Placed fugitive court cases under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal gov't. Any captured person who claimed to be free was denied his right to a trial by jury. Any Northerner who helps runaways were subject to heavy fines (1,000 dollar fines/jail time).

Vigilante Committees are citizens who patrol for slaves for them to stay hidden.

Personal Liberty Laws (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts) are laws that guarantee rights to a jury trial.

Participation/Support of Underground Railroad helped slaves to go to Canada/Mexico (slaveless countries).

Underground Railroad Speak

 * Conductors: Helped get fugitives from one home to another.
 * Stations: Safehouses
 * Stationmasters: Homeowners
 * Stockholders: Donated money to the cause.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

 * Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.
 * Progressive family:
 * Catherine Beecher: Domesticity
 * Lyman Beecher: Temperist and establish a good society in Washington
 * Henry Ward Beecher: Abolitionist
 * Impact of Lane Seminary, OH?
 * Stock in the underground railroad as it was between the Ohio River and Kentucky. Stowe met runaways here.
 * She wanted to convey the feelings of the slaves.
 * First published in installments in National Era, the abolitionist magazine then made a book.
 * Sold 300,000 copies in 1852.

Impact

 * UTC convinced a generation of Northerners and Europeans that all slave owners were like Legree.
 * Southerners are outraged and ban the book, saying that slavery has been in all major, important civilizations.
 * North becomes more concern with morality while the South becomes more convinced that North wants to end their way of life.

Election of 1852

 * Democrat: Franklin Pierce
 * Advocated for enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act.
 * Whig: Winfield Scott
 * Mex-Am War hero.
 * Ignored slavery issue. Wnated the Comp. of 1850. Promoted internal improvements.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

 * 1854: Stephen Douglas proposes that the Kansas and Nebraska territories be formed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
 * Encourage settlement and governance.
 * Wanted to sponsor a bill for a railroad between Chicago and San Francisco.

They don't want to build a territory in the Kansas and Nebraska area [unsettled land]. Native American attacks would most likely attack the railroad.

They needed to populate these areas. In order to do this, Douglas empowers popular sovereignty in order to get people flocking to these lands. This was an intrusion in the Missouri compromise.

The free-soilers (white farmers in the North) opposed this move by Douglas because of the unfair competition between the farmers with/without labor to have.

Reactions

 * Southerners were happy because the new territory is open to slavery.
 * Northerners get a railroad.
 * Steps towards achieving Manifest Destiny.
 * The bill passed both houses and President Pierce signed it into law.
 * Impact:
 * Renewed sectional tensions-violence in KS.
 * Whig Party dies.
 * New political party is born, the Republican party, with the platform of being anti-slavery.